The Commentariat -- Aug. 21, 2013

** Steve Freiss, in BuzzFeed: "The National Rifle Association has rallied gun-owners -- and raised tens of millions of dollars -- campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners. But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country's largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby's secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy." Thanks to contributor safari for the link.

Siobhan Gorman & Jennifer Valentino-Devries of the Wall Street Journal: "The National Security Agency -- which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens -- has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and former officials say. The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say." CW: Firewalled. To access, copy & paste part of text into Google search. ...

... Michael Isikoff, et al., of NBC News: "More than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security Agency still doesn't know the full extent of what he took, according to intelligence community sources, and is' overwhelmed' trying to assess the damage." ...

... Jeff Toobin in the New Yorker: "... for all the excitement generated by Snowden's disclosures, there is no proof of any systemic, deliberate violations of law.... But, because of Snowden's disclosures, the government will almost certainly have to spend billions of dollars, and thousands of people will have to spend thousands of hours, reworking our procedures." Toobin goes on to rip Snowden as a malevolent lamebrain, tho those aren't the words he uses. ...

... Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "Having gone global and remained free to readers on the Web, with a newsroom in New York as well as in London, The Guardian is a much harder news organization than most to intimidate or censor, as the British government, with no written Constitution or Bill of Rights to enshrine protections of free speech, has discovered. But the tale of the last two months, as [editor Alan] Rusbridger tells it, at least, is an extraordinary one of attempted political interference." ...

... Julian Borger of the Guardian provides details on why the Guardian decided to destroy the laptops & how the whole "bizarre" incident went down. ...

... MEANWHILE, Lisa O'Carroll of the Guardian: "Lawyers for the partner [David Miranda] of the Guardian journalist [Glenn Greenwald] who exposed mass email surveillance have written to home secretary Theresa May and the head of the Metropolitan police warning them that they are set to take legal action over what they , say amounted to his "unlawful" detention at Heathrow airport under anti-terror laws. ...

... Dana Milbank on the President's nonsense claim that Edward Snowden would have come out fine if he had gone through "channels" to voice his concern. Milbank has followed the tribulations of Gina Gray, "the Defense Department whistleblower [who] ... exposed much of the wrongdoing at Arlington National Cemetery — misplaced graves, mishandled remains and financial mismanagement -- and she attempted to do it through the proper internal channels.... Sadly, Gray's case is emblematic of the way this administration has handled whistleblowers.... Snowden's case is quite a bit different, and murkier; his dalliances with China and now Russia raise questions about his motives. But Gray's case shows that Snowden was correct about one thing: Trying to pursue the proper internal channels doesn't work." ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: " Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has filled a secret court that oversees surveillance almost entirely with Republican-appointed judges, has named Judge José A. Cabranes, a Democratic appointee, to the panel.... Although Judge Cabranes was appointed to United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President Bill Clinton, he is considered among the more conservative-leaning Democratic appointees on crime and security issues. In 2005, some supporters -- including Michael Mukasey, who later became President George W. Bush's attorney general -- floated his name as a potential Supreme Court nominee.... Judge Cabranes ... is not a liberal counterweight to conservatives on privacy rights, legal experts said."

Kyle Cheney & Maggie Haberman of Politico: "Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill Obamacare dead, but Texas health officials are in talks with the Obama administration about accepting an estimated $100 million available through the health law to care for the elderly and disabled.... Perry health aides are negotiating with the Obama administration on the terms of an optional Obamacare program that would allow Texas to claim stepped-up Medicaid funding for the care of people with disabilities. The so-called Community First Choice program aims to enhance the quality of services available to the disabled and elderly in their homes or communities. Similar approaches have had bipartisan support around the country. About 12,000 Texans are expected to benefit in the first year of the program."

Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: "As [former Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner has helped [Lawrence] Summers navigate the uproar [over the President's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve] this summer, he also has been consulted by the president on whom the next Fed chair should be, according to a person familiar with the matter. Longtime campaign advisers to Obama such as Jim Messina and Stephanie Cutter, now in the private sector and more skilled in the world of politics and media than Summers, offered to lend a hand to their former colleague. Meanwhile, allies of [Janet] Yellen publicized her attributes in the media while privately lobbying on her behalf -- often without much success." ...

... Neil Irwin of the Washington Post outlines the reasons the White House prefers Summers to Yellin: (a) Yellin isn't known for being a team player (yeah, & Summers is!); (b) she is "methodical" & "always meticulously prepared," unlike some of the "manic" people on the White House econ team; & (c) President Obama thinks Summers will be more responsive to popping future economic bubbles (because, um, because). CW: Obviously, Irwin's sources are on the White House economic team. So let me reinterpret their reservations: Yellin is a woman. ...

Art via Digby.... Oh, Digby read Irwin's report, too: "So Janet Yellen's a great gal, smart and thoughtful and what not. But she's just not one of the boys." ...

... Max Nisen of Business Insider: "The Obama Administration Has The Stupidest Possible Reasons For Not Liking Janet Yellen.... So basically: Yellen is too methodological, independent, and is too interested in fixing the current employment problem, rather than pricking bubbles which haven't even formed yet. Depressing."

Ashley Parker & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Ted Cruz, after two days of bedevilment over his birthplace and eligibility for the presidency, returned to form on Tuesday night with a rally [in Dallas, Texas] before the conservative faithful aimed at ginning up support to defund President Obama's health care overhaul." ...

... O Canada! David Ljunggren of Reuters: "U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who says he recently discovered he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada's spy agency, fill out a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America's northern neighbor.... As part of the process, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service spy agency must issue a security clearance to anyone who wants to give up their citizenship. Once officials have examined a file and cleared an applicant, it goes to a citizenship judge for a final decision." ...

... CW: it seems to me the best thing to do in this grievous situation is for the U.S. to begin deportation proceedings immediately. ...

... Tom Bevan, the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics, is right upset that the liberal media are picking on Ted Cruz, just the way they picked on Mitt Romney, dredging up stories from the gentlemen's youths to place them in an unfavorable light. "The Daily Beast's piece on Cruz represents a new low for the genre and for modern political journalism...." CW: I guess we should assume conservative & mainstream media never once published an unflattering portrait of a Democratric candidate & his youthful adventures.

Kathie Obradovich of the Des Moines Register: "The co-chairman of the Polk County, [Iowa,] Republican Party has resigned and changed his party registration to independent, saying the GOP has become too conservative and is condoning 'hateful' rhetoric. Chad Brown, 34, of Ankeny ..., said in a phone interview that he became disgusted by a party he believes is being run by the Christian right and the National Rifle Association. He cited Congressman Steve King's recent, controversial comments on illegal immigrants as an example of his philosophical conflict with the party."

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "Officials at the Internal Revenue Service were encouraged to flag groups with the word 'emerge' in their names as well as potential successors to the anti-poverty organization ACORN, according to documents released by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. The documents add another complicated layer to the ongoing (albeit diminished) controversy surrounding the IRS screening of Tea Party groups in 2010 and 2011. They also take additional steam out of the Republican Party's insistence that the tax agency was politically motivated against conservative groups when it considered whether or not to grant tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) status."

Corky Siemaszko of the New York Daily News: "A spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) ... told the Daily Beast that the Obama Administration is 'temporarily suspending most forms of military aid' [to Egypt,] but a White House rep said 'No specific decisions have been made' at this point." ...

Peter Schwartzstein of the Atlantic: "There Are No More Good Guys in Egypt. One thing that makes this crisis so vexing: Each of the country's major groups have done something totally horrible in the past few weeks." (See also Tuesday's News Ledes.)

Gubernatorial Race

Quinnipiac University: "Democrat Terry McAuliffe has a 48 - 42 percent lead over Republican State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in the race to become Virginia's next governor, according to today's Quinnipiac University poll, the first survey in this race among voters likely to vote in the November election."

Local News

Katharine Seelye & Jess Bidgood of the New York Times: "The Portland Press Herald reported Monday night that two anonymous lawmakers said they had heard [Maine Gov. Paul LePage] say at a private fund-raiser this month that President Obama 'hates white people.' ... On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. LePage, 64, a Republican elected with Tea Party support who avoids talking to the news media as much as possible, stepped forward and denied having said any such thing.... The problem for Mr. LePage, as even some of his allies acknowledge, is that whether or not he made this particular comment, he has made so many other startlingly blunt assertions that while one more may not matter, the accumulation of such comments could." LePage has a good chance of winning re-election, however, because independent candidate Eliot Cutler, who won 36.5 % of the vote in 2010, intends to run again, perhaps allowing LePage to squeak through as he did in then.

Gee, it seems some of the vigilante border patrol/Arizona Minutemen are taking aim at real law enforcement officials, & Sheriff Joe Arpaio is threatening to shoot the self-described militia. If only we could somehow get a "well-regulated militia."

News Ledes

NPR: "Marian McPartland, who gave the world an intimate, insider's perspective on one of the most elusive topics in music -- jazz improvisation -- died of natural causes Tuesday night at her home in Long Island, N.Y. She was 95. For more than 40 years, she hosted an NPR program pairing conversation and duet performances that reached an audience of millions, connecting with jazz fans and the curious alike. She interviewed practically every major jazz musician of the post-WWII era." Includes related links. The New York Times obituary is here.

Al Jazeera: "Syrian activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching a gas attack that reportedly killed hundreds Wednesday. If confirmed, the attack would be the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war, and would cross what President Barack Obama has called a 'red line.' ... The White House said it was 'deeply concerned' over the reports.... It also said it had no 'independent verification' about the use of chemical weapons in Syria."

Washington Post: "Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak could leave prison as early as Wednesday night, government officials and legal experts said, after a Cairo court ordered the release of the deposed autocrat who ruled Egypt for three decades." ...

... Al Jazeera: "The European Union decided Wednesday to suspend exports of weapons and some goods to Egypt. The move was meant to block the transfer of materials that could be used for internal repression amid a military crackdown on supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi."

AP: "In the hours after President Richard Nixon delivered a public Watergate address as scandal exploded, two future presidents called him to express their private support, according to audio recordings released Wednesday. The April 30, 1973, calls with Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. were captured on a secret recording system that Nixon used.... The final chronological installment of those tapes -- 340 hours -- were made public by the National Archives and Records Administration, along with more than 140,000 pages of text documents. Seven hundred hours remain sealed for national security and privacy reasons." You can listen to the tapes here.

AP: "The soldier on trial for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood rested his case Wednesday without calling any witnesses or testifying in his own defense. Maj. Nidal Hasan is acting as his own attorney but told the judge that he wouldn't be putting up a defense. About five minutes after proceedings began, the judge asked Hasan how he wanted to proceed. He answered: 'The defense rests.'"

USA Today: "Army Col. Denise Lind said she will announce the sentence [of Bradley Manning] at 10 a.m." today. ...

     ... Update: Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military prison. Will get credit for 3-1/2 years he's already served. Is eligible for parole. Also received a dishonorable discharge, reduced in rank by one rank & forfeits pay. Could end up serving a minimum of 10 years. All per NBC News. No link. ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison...." ...

     ... Guardian Update: "Bradley Manning will send a personal plea to Barack Obama next week for a presidential pardon after he was sentenced on Wednesday to 35 years in prison for passing hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks."

New York Times: Afghan villagers are "the first witnesses to testify at a sentencing hearing for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who has pleaded guilty to killing 16 Afghan civilians -- most of them women and children -- as he stalked through their mud-walled compounds in Kandahar Province in March 2012."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 20, 2013

Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast: "The U.S. government has decided privately to act as if the military takeover of Egypt was a coup, temporarily suspending most forms of military aid, despite deciding not to announce publicly a coup determination one way or the other, according to ... Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)...." See also today's News Ledes re: Saudi aid to the Egyptian military regime.

Erica Werner of the AP: "The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is rejecting the idea of giving immigrants in the U.S. illegally a special pathway to citizenship. Republican congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia told a town hall meeting in the Shenandoah Valley on Monday that the House must chart its own course on immigration even if it never results in a bill President Barack Obama can sign. He said that he'll do everything he can to ensure the House never takes up the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill, which includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally."

Billy Kenber & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: "U.S. officials on Monday distanced themselves from the decision of British authorities to detain the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald..., amid questions over the documents officials may have confiscated. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that U.S. officials had received a 'heads up' that London police would detain David Miranda on Sunday, but he said the U.S. government did not request Miranda's detention, calling it 'a law enforcement action' taken by the British government." ...

... Jonathan Watts of the Guardian: "David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a 'total abuse of power' for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act. In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone. 'They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate,' said Miranda." ...

... Steve M. of NMMNB: "You have a reasonable suspicion that Miranda has stolen national security secrets? Get a damn warrant. Arrest him in a conventional way. Allow him legal counsel. Act like a country where people actually are free." ...

... ** Bob Cesca of the Daily Banter: "So Miranda, Greenwald's spouse, served as a paid courier to transfer stolen, top secret national security documents from Greenwald to [filmmaker Laura] Poitras, and from Poitras back to Greenwald. That's a huge piece of the puzzle, not to mention a total debunking of any hysterical assertion that Miranda was being harassed and intimidated just because he's Greenwald's spouse. He was, in fact, detained because he was transporting stolen national secrets." Read the whole post. Via Steve M. ...

... Helen Davidson of the Guardian: "Amnesty International has condemned the detention of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner at a London airport as 'unwarranted revenge tactics' based solely on his relationship with Greenwald." ...

... AND "Reporters Without Borders is outraged that US journalist Glen Greenwald's Brazilian partner David Miranda was detained and questioned for nine hours yesterday at London's Heathrow airport under the UK's Terrorism Act, and that his mobile phone, laptop and other computer equipment were all seized." ...

... Revenge Journalism. Pedro Fonseca of Reuters: Glenn Greenwald, "the journalist who first published secrets leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden, vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will 'regret' detaining his partner for nine hours.... 'I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England's spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did,' Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio de Janeiro's airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil." ...

... CW: Let me get this straight. It's "an unwarranted revenge tactic" when the U.K. detains Greenwald's husband who is reputedly carrying stolen classified documents across international borders, but it's A-okay for Greenwald to retaliate by publishing documents that could compromise U.K. security. WTF am I missing here? Revenge is sweet when I do it? It's a travesty when you do it. Sorry, Glennbots, your hero is a punk. (And, yeah, I get that it's helpless little ole Glenn vs. the mighty Queen's secret service.) ...

... CW: Here's another question -- If the Guardian wanted a mole to smuggle in state secrets, couldn't they have hired a less obvious mule than Greenwald's husband? Say, a little old British lady who might have been traveling on holiday to see the Pergamon Altar & visit the Reichstag? Or did they just want another sensational story? ...

... CW: I see Gary Legum of Wonkette shares my skepticism: "Expertly baited trap, Glenn Greenwald, you evil genius you. Way to fall for it, British authorities. Now Glenzilla gets to inject some fresh energy into a story that had been wilting in the August doldrums and The Guardian gets a burst of web traffic. And we get yelled at for being leg-humping Obamabots. Everybody wins!" ...

... AND Joshua Foust, a national security writer, after excoriating the British authorities for the lengthy detention of Miranda, writes, "Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of his decision to help pilfer and distribute the treasured secrets of several governments, to do so openly, with such braggadocio, is not only arrogant it is misguided. This is not a game, especially to the governments being exposed, and casually involving a spouse to take a hit when he won't risk it is a bizarre and troubling decision.... It sounds a lot like [Miranda] is being used by Greenwald and doesn't fully understand the seriousness of what he's wrapped up in." Foust also notes that Miranda wasn't denied a lawyer; rather he was offered one & refused. ...

... Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, defends the paper's tactics & relates intimidating incidents, during one of which Whitehall personnel destroyed some of the Guardian's documents & hard drives:

Miranda's professional status -- much hand-wringing about whether or not he's a proper 'journalist' -- is largely irrelevant in these circumstances. Increasingly, the question about who deserves protection should be less 'is this a journalist?' than 'is the publication of this material in the public interest?'

... Driftglass: "Now that a non-journalist in their employ has apparently been caught couriering stolen, classified national security documents across Europe, the Guardian has quickly moved to redefine the parameters of who gets journalist protection from 'journalist' to 'anybody'.... However, before we officially sign off abolishing the distinct category of 'journalist' altogether..., perhaps we should pause for just a moment to consider how that exciting new professional standard will be received by Rupert Murdoch and his merry band of phone hackers." ...

... Foust again: after providing a short list of over-the-top, fact-free reactions from "professional journalists" to the Miranda detention, "... being on the side of the truth is, apparently, not an option here -- the world is not a series of complex events, but a simplified bifurcation into 'us' and 'them,' and 'them' always must be vilified as your enemy. I expect this sort of manicheanism from Beltway partisan rags, but not from high-brow magazines and ostensibly professional journalists… but that is, apparently, naive of me." ...

... Oh, how could I have missed this? Chris Good of ABC News: "Julian Assange is a 'big admirer' of both Ron and Rand Paul, the Wikileaks founder said during a recent interview -- while calling some of the younger Paul's views 'sometimes simplistic.' ... Assange cited the Pauls' positions on foreign wars, military drafts, taxes, and abortion." (Emphasis added.) ...

... Travis Waldron of Think Progress: Rand "Paul would replace the current progressive tax system with a flat tax rate, effectively providing the wealthiest Americans with a massive tax cut while raising taxes on many middle- and lower-class families.... Paul's plan finds a way to grant the wealthy an even bigger tax cut by also eliminating all taxes on capital gains, dividends, and other investment income."

... Laura Chapin in U.S. News: "Rand Paul is not only anti-choice, he embraces 'personhood,' the far end of the extremist spectrum on opposing reproductive rights.... As a senator, Paul has introduced the Life at Conception Act, which codifies the notion of 'personhood' into federal law. 'Personhood' is a fringe movement that would give full legal and constitutional rights to fertilized eggs under the law. It would outlaw abortion in all cases, even for victims of rape or incest. It would outlaw many forms of hormonal contraception and IUDs, and limit emergency contraception and in vitro fertilization." ...

... CW: Julian Assange is a glib, self-centered ignoramus, who -- when flailing around looking for something to entertain himself -- latched onto the idea of hacking for fun, fame & profit. The results so far -- mixed.

Here's another guy whose insights into policy issues would not be worth reading -- except he is in a position to do more than opine:

It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, re: the Court's decisions on gay marriage & federal benefits for same-sex couples ...

... Joe Coscarelli of New York: "But don't even ask about term limits for justices: "Who is drooling on the bench?" Scalia said last night. Don't answer that."

Michael Shear & Peter Eavis of the New York Times: "President Obama urged the nation's top financial regulators on Monday to move faster on new rules for Wall Street, telling them in a private White House meeting that they must work to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

Steve Benen: "... a small business owner in Las Vegas who had some straightforward questions for Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.): 'Why would you oppose the ACA at every turn?' and 'Why would you oppose something that's helping me now?'" This is a beautiful thing to see. Heck's response is the real "train wreck": he claims, falsely, that Republicans had no opportunity to participate in the crafting of ObamaCare & that if the businessman increases his staff to 50+ employees, he'll be screwed:

Document No. 9. Chris Buckley of the New York Times: "Even as Xi [Jinping, China's leader,] has sought to prepare some reforms to expose China's economy to stronger market forces, he has undertaken a 'mass line' campaign to enforce party authority that goes beyond the party's periodic calls for discipline." "Document No. 9 warns against "'Western constitutional democracy'; ... promoting 'universal values' of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market 'neo-liberalism,' and 'nihilist' criticisms of the party's traumatic past."

Presidential Election 2016

Patricia Murphy of the Daily Beast interviews some of Ted Cruz's Princeton classmates. His freshman year roommate, Craig Mazin, sez, "I would rather have anybody else be the president of the United States. Anyone. I would rather pick somebody from the phone book." Some people Murphy interviewed liked Cruz, but "several fellow classmates ... described the young Cruz with words like 'abrasive,' 'intense,' 'strident,' 'crank,' and 'arrogant.' Four independently offered the word 'creepy,' with some pointing to Cruz's habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm's hallway where the female students lived." ...

... Not Running for Canandian Prime Minister. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "Sen. Ted Cruz acknowledged late Monday that he probably has been a lifelong Canadian and vowed to renounce that citizenship now that he realizes he's had it. 'The Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship,' Cruz, a freshman Republican from Texas, said in a statement. 'Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth and as a U.S. senator, I believe I should be only an American.'" ...

... Dan Amira of New York posts a copy of Cruz's official Canadian citizenship renunciation application. Best part: Cruz's reasons for renouncing his citizenship. And, yes, it's possible Amira took some liberties. ...

... Josh Marshall of TPM provides this link to the full form in case you are in need of renouncing your Canadian citizenship. Also, Marshall says it will cost $100. Maybe Ted can take it out of his exploratory committee expense fund. ...

... Aaron Blake: "No, Ted Cruz 'birthers' are not the same as Obama birthers.... Questions about Cruz's eligibility have everything to do with interpretation of the law; the questions about Obama's eligibility had everything to do with a dispute over the underlying facts.... In Cruz's case, nobody is disputing the underlying facts of the case..., but it's not 100 percent clear that that is the same thing as a 'natural born citizen' -- the requirement for becoming president. Most scholars think it's the same thing, and the Congressional Research Service said in 2011 that someone like Cruz 'most likely' qualifies to run for president. But to this point, there is no final word from the courts, because while foreign-born candidates have run -- including George Romney and John McCain -- none of them has actually won and had his eligibility challenged." ...

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: none of these messy facts has stopped CNN from comparing the years of Obama birther hoo-hah to Ted Cruz's one-day story, even though "I've not seen one Democrat make an issue about this other than to snicker and laugh.... Because, you know, Ted Cruz voluntarily releasing his birth certificate and everyone yawning is the same as a sustained multi-year effort to delegitimize President Obama while asserting he is Kenyan and blah blah blah. Also, too, both sides do it." CW: the CNN writers are "professional journalists," the Fates help us.

Al Hunt of Bloomberg News: "Hillary Clinton doesn't want the biopics, either.... Members of the Clinton camp ... worry the TV series are more likely to hurt than help their candidate in the likely event she decides to run. They calculate the Republicans are already, in the words of one pundit, 'working the refs' -- meaning the networks now would have to bend over backward to avoid turning the programs into flattering portraits. And they note the director of the CNN program is Charles Ferguson, who won an Academy Award for 'Inside Job,' a scathing documentary on the Wall Street financial crisis. That film cast blame, in part, on key figures in President Bill Clinton's administration for their roles in the events leading up to the crash."

Local News

CBS News/AP: "City Hall opened as usual Monday but Mayor Bob Filner was nowhere to be found, still out of public view as he tries to survive a recall effort prompted by a cascade of sexual harassment allegations that led the entire City Council and many leading fellow Democrats to call for him to resign.... According to San Diego's 10News, Filner's attorneys were in a mediation session Monday morning with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing some of the women who claim they were sexually harassed by the mayor. The station reported that the lawyers were negotiating a deal that could lead to Filner's resignation."

News Ledes

Daily Beast: "U.S. officials followed the Internet trail of an al Qaeda courier to learn the details of an electronic conference between more than 20 of the organization's top officials."

New York Times: " Days before he opened fire inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood here in 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sent two e-mails to his Army superiors expressing concern about the actions of some of the soldiers he was evaluating as a military psychiatrist."

Washington Post: "The Muslim Brotherhood vowed Tuesday that it would not take up arms in response to the arrest of the group's spiritual leader, as it reeled from a crackdown that threatens to paralyze Egypt's most prominent Islamist organization." ...

... New York Times: Across Egypt, Christians & their churches have been the targets of Islamist violence. "As Christians were scapegoated for supporting the military ouster of Mr. Morsi, the authorities stood by and watched: in Nazla, as in other places, the army and the police made no attempt to intervene." ...

... Washington Post: "... more than 60 churches ... have been attacked, vandalized and in many cases set aflame across Egypt in a surge of violence against Christians that has followed the bloody Aug. 14 raid by Egyptian security forces on two Islamist protest camps in Cairo. The attacks, most of them in Egypt's Nile Valley, have lent legitimacy to the military-backed government's claims that it is fighting a war against terrorism."

New York: Crime novelist Elmore Leonard has died at the age of 87. Update: the New York Times obituary is here.

New York Times: "Saudi Arabia has emerged as the foremost supporter of Egypt’s military rulers, explicitly backing the violent crackdown on Islamists and using its oil wealth and diplomatic muscle to help defy growing pressure from the West to end the bloodshed in search of a political solution. As Europeans and the United States considered cutting cash aid to Egypt, Saudi Arabia said Monday that it and its allies would make up any reduction -- effectively neutralizing the West's main leverage over Cairo." ...

... Washington Post: "Security forces arrested the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on Monday night, in an escalating showdown with the influential Islamist movement that has led to the ouster of Egypt's first democratically elected president and some of the bloodiest urban violence in its modern history."

New York Times: "A Pakistani court indicted Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday in connection with the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the first time that a former military leader has faced criminal proceedings in Pakistan."

The Commentariat -- Aug. 19, 2013

Guardian: "The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals." ...

... Glenn Greenwald comments: worse than the Mafia, puppets of U.S. national security state, despotic, etc. "If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded." ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: Miranda "had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden's leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.... Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald's investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said." ...

... ** The Courier. Driftglass: "But it is also true that if non-journalist David Miranda was detained because he was couriering some portion of a trove of incredibly dangerous, stolen US intelligence secrets across international borders at Mr. Greenwald's behest, Mr. Greenwald owed it to his readers to include that very important fact in his reporting. And so once again we see the problem inherent in advocacy journalism when the advocate in question continues to believe his only obligation to his readers is to share with them only those details of the story that are favorable to his cause."

... CW: contributor P. D. Pepe links to this New Republic piece in which Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution accuses the Washington Post of sensationalizing the leaked NSA audit report to mislead its readers into believing NSA personnel routinely spied on innocent Americans, while at the same time he skewers the Obama administration: "... if there were a way to botch more completely a public response to these disclosures, I'm not sure I know what it would look like." Wittes composes a graf in which he lays out what the administration should have said. Ya know what? Witte's suggestion is pretty much a copy of what the Obama administration actually said in respose to the WashPo report by Barton Gellman. Right there in the self-same Washington Post,Ellen Nakashima reported on August 16:

The White House said in a statement Friday that the 'NSA documents being reported on today ... demonstrate that the NSA is monitoring, detecting, addressing and reporting compliance incidents.' In a conference call with reporters Friday, NSA Compliance Director John DeLong repeatedly said that the agency takes compliance seriously and that the audit's existence proved that. 'People need to understand there's no willful violations here,' he said. The mistakes are in the 'parts-per-million or parts-per-billion range,' he said. 'We really do look for them, detect them and correct them.' Added DeLong: 'No one at NSA, not me or anyone else, thinks they are okay.' When pressed, he said there have been willful violations, but the number is 'minuscule ... a couple over the past decade.'

      ... Say "Never mind," Ben. (Wittes' criticism of Gellman's piece is still worth reading.) ...

      ... Update: Wittes responded, "Yes, they eventually said some of the same facts, but not in the story--and they did it in a reactive and apologetic fashion. My point is that this is actually a record to be proud of, and they are not reflecting that."

... Good Question, Obvious Answer. David Sirota in Salon: "With the latest major revelation about National Security Agency surveillance, there's a huge taboo question that needs to be put out on the table: Has President Obama been deliberately lying about the NSA, or have his statements just been repeatedly 'wrong'? ... If indeed he hasn't been deliberately lying -- then it means he has been dangerously, irresponsibly and negligently ignorant of not only the government he runs, but also of the news breaking around him."

Paul Krugman: Republican leaders don't understand healthcare reform. Even now. ...

A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they'll somehow be sticking it to me. But they'd just be sticking it to you. -- President Obama, Saturday

I don't think shutting down the government is a good idea, but I do think that we were elected, conservatives were elected, to try to stop this overreach, this government takeover of healthcare. -- Sen. Rand Paul (RTP-Ky.), Sunday

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "A pair of tea party groups is teaming up to pressure key Republicans to support an effort to defund Obamacare. Tea Party Patriots and the grassroots group For America are launching online ads against a dozen GOP senators who either oppose the effort or haven't announced a position."

Kevin Robillard of Politico: "New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says there's "no question" more people would die if the city's next mayor ends the controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which a federal judge has struck down as unconstitutional. 'No question about it, violent crime will go up,' Kelly said Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press: when host David Gregory asked if more people would die." CW: that's right Greggers; feed him his lines. ...

... ** New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in a Washington Post op-ed, writes that stop-&-frisk is not racial profiling. He disses the Post editors & the judge who ruled against the city. CW: He completely undercuts his own argument, however, when he argues that it only makes sense to target young black & Hispanic males since they're the ones who commit the crimes, & calls it "absurd" not to target young minority men. "Unlike many cities, where wealthy areas get special treatment, the NYPD targets its manpower to the areas that suffer the highest crime levels. Ninety percent of all people killed in our city -- and 90 percent of all those who commit the murders and other violent crimes -- are black and Hispanic. It is shameful that so many elected officials and editorial writers have been largely silent on these facts." Read the whole post. You may find yourself agreeing with Bloomberg anyway. ...

... OR, maybe the city could have effectively reduced crime by getting the lead out.

Wherein Fiscal Conservatives Figure out Prisons Are Expensive. Jerry Markon & Frederick Kunkle of the Washington Post: "'There is an expectation that the generic Republican position is tough on crime,' [Virginia Attorney General & candidate for governor Ken] Cuccinelli said in an interview Thursday. 'But even that has budget limits, particularly on the prison side.' Two decades after Republican George Allen charged into the Virginia governorship by vowing to eliminate parole for violent offenders, a rhetorical shift among the state's leading conservatives reflects changing attitudes toward criminal justice nationwide."

Wherein the Chamber of Commerce Figures out the Tea Party Is Not Its BFF. Sabrina Siddiqui & Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post: "... the chamber's big spending in 2010 to elect a House GOP majority appears to have backfired. Many of the conservative lawmakers the chamber helped elect are now an impediment to the business lobby's legislative priorities, either by contributing to Congress' dysfunction or by actively opposing chamber-backed measures."

A Scandal of Her Own? Raymond Hernandez of the New York Times examines Huma Abedin's complicated simultaneous employment arrangements -- at the State Department, at a consulting firm called Teneo, for the Clinton Foundation & for Hillary Clinton personally. Abedin & her friends & employers aren't talking, which is vexing Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). CW: how the hell did she figure out her billing?

The Messiah Is a Girl. From Alaska. David Edwards of the Raw Story: "The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol was one of Sarah Palin's earliest supporters to be picked as the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, and now he says she can 'resurrect herself' by running to be a senator from Alaska." CW: hope nobody tells former Half-Gov. Palin/The One that a Senate term runs for six long years.

Ted Cruz for President/Prime Minister of North America. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News: "Born in Canada to an American mother, Ted Cruz became an instant U.S. citizen. But under Canadian law, he also became a citizen of that country the moment he was born. Unless the Texas Republican senator formally renounces that citizenship, he will remain a citizen of both countries, legal experts say." CW: hey, if you're a citizen of a foreign country where they have socialized medicine & even the police wear red jackets, can you be a "real American"?

Congressional Elections 2014

Brian Beutler of Salon: "... the [Republican] party worries it's so rudderless and unpopular that it might blow what everyone believed to be a rigged game much sooner than expected. In three different stories, four reporters with strong Republican sourcing detected a specter of doubt haunting the GOP. The Washington Examiner's Byron York distilled it most clearly. 'Behind the scenes -- in whispered asides, not for public consumption -- some Republicans are now worried that keeping the House is not such a done deal after all,' he wrote. 'They look back to two elections, 1998 and 2006, in which Republicans seriously underperformed expectations, and they wonder if 2014 might be a little like those two unhappy years.'" CW: I'm not getting my hopes up.

Local News

Back Before Maureen Started Keeping Bob in the Dark. "Look, Honey, Jonnie sent me a big check, too."... Rosalind Helderman & Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, will spend Monday locked in separate hours-long meetings trying to convince federal prosecutors that the first couple should not be charged in the gifts scandal that has dominated state politics. The meetings open a new, critical phase of the investigation, timed to help prosecutors decide over the next few weeks whether to file charges.... The central issues for prosecutors are what precisely McDonnell may have said or offered to [businessman Jonnie] Williams on his own and how much the governor knew about his wife's acceptance of gifts from Williams and her actions to help his company.... As the scandal has shined an uncomfortable spotlight on the governor's marriage, McDonnell's side has conveyed to authorities that his wife often purposely kept him in the dark about the largess she was accepting from Williams...."

Julie Watson of the Washington Post: "The effort to recall San Diego's embattled mayor is kicking off in the nation's eighth-largest city Sunday, one day before Bob Filner is set to return to work after undergoing behavior therapy." Peter Rowe of the San Diego Union-Tribune has more.

Presidential Election 2016

Peter Nicholas, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: "Political allies of Vice President Joe Biden have concluded that he can win the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination -- even if Hillary Clinton enters the contest -- and are considering steps he could take to prepare for a potential candidacy. While Mr. Biden has made no decision about his future, people familiar with his thinking say, he hasn't ruled out a bid for the White House. If he runs, that could set up a titanic battle between two of the party's most prominent figures."

Justin Sink of the Hill: "Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) unloaded on fellow Republican lawmaker Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) Sunday, accusing him of providing 'a grab bag of misinformation and distortion' on the National Security Agency's top-secret surveillance programs. In an appearance earlier on 'Fox News Sunday,' Paul accused the spy agency of 'looking at billions of phone calls every day' and said the constitutionality of the programs should be evaluated by the Supreme Court." CW: King has said he is seriously considering a 2016 run, & Li'l Randy knows all the words to "Hail to the Chief."

President Handsome. Hillary Chabot of the Boston Herald: "Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown told the Herald he is looking at a possible 2016 presidential bid today as he hit a well-worn stomping ground for Oval Office hopefuls -- the Iowa State Fair." CW: Tried to learn the words to "Hail to the Chief." Too hard; can hum a few bars. ...

... Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars: "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! *wipes tears from eyes*"

Local News

New York Times: "A day after the Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody, suspected militants were reported on Monday to have killed at least 24 police officers in an attack on their minibuses in the restive northern Sinai region." ...

... Welcome Back, Hosni? New York Times: "A court in in Egypt has ordered that former President Hosni Mubarak, who has been detained on a variety of charges since his ouster in 2011, should be set free, according to state media and security officials on Monday, but it remained possible that the authorities would find a way to keep him in detention and his release did not appear imminent."

New York Times: "Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic and Olympic track star, was indicted Monday in a South African court on a charge of premeditated murder in the death of his girlfriend. Magistrate Desmond Nair set a trial date for March 3, 2014. Mr. Pistorius, who has been out on bail since February, will remain free until then."